This year's Cannes showed a few firsts, including parties hosted by a sheikh, a menage à trois of sorts at a beach nightclub and a red carpet ensemble that sent the ushers out of kilter writes MICHAEL DWYER
THERE’S SUCH a strong whiff of déjà vu about returning to Cannes every year that it feels like Groundhog Day. It begins when checking in at the Mondial, the hotel where I’ve stayed for the past 18 years and had the same room for most of them. Such familiarity is comforting at a rock-the-clock event where everyone is under pressure.
There was a rare first this year when I got an invitation issued on behalf of a sheikh, and not one but two, to the party for the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, “under the patronage of HH General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nayhan and under the chairmanship of HH Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nayhan.” The party was in Chacha, a trendy beach club on the Croisette. Maybe I’m terribly innocent, but Le Chacha Beach has to be the first nightclub where I’ve seen a double bed in the centre of a room – and there were three people stretched across it, two men and a woman. That seemed appropriate given the number of menage-à-trois movies at Cannes this year, but there was nothing risqué about the arrangement, as each was absorbed in their Blackberry.
Another trio, this time musicians, served up cool jazz while food stations offered mezzesof Middle Eastern cuisine, and the champagne, which was as chilled as the guests, flowed freely. On the way out, I was given a goody bag with another first, an attractively ornate Arabian mouse pad, which I am already using.
I SWEARthere were no beds in sight at the Irish film industry party on the Rado beach at Cannes. As Simon Berry, chief exective of the Irish Film Board, introduced the party's co-host, Eugene Downes, chief executive of Culture Ireland, he could not resist complimenting him on his smart footwear. Downes moved swiftly onwards to introduce special guest David Holmes, who provided the mood-enhancing musical entertainment.
So many Irish producers were present that anyone rude enough to have thrown a canape could not have missed hitting one. Actors Aiden Gillen and Robert Sheehan were there, as was Neil Jordan, which was appropriate because the beach next door shares its name, Ondine, with the title of Jordan's new movie starring Colin Farrell as a fisherman who lands a mermaid in his net. Ondine hits the festival circuit in the autumn.
Michael Algar attended in his new role as consultant to film sales company High Point. He was the first chief executive of the Irish Film Board when it was established in the 1980s. Reminiscing on Cannes back then, he noted how the number of Irish delegates could be counted on two hands and maybe with fingers to spare, compared to the 175 registered at the Irish Pavilion this year.
Representing film trade paper Screen Internationalwas London-based Audrey Ward, who is from Dublin and has movies in her genes. Her grandfather, Leo Ward, has been operating dozens of Irish cinemas since the 1950s, and her father, Paul, followed him into the business. Audrey arrived at the party still buzzing after interviewing Martin Scorsese in Cannes about his many imminent projects, which include a biopic of Frank Sinatra.
THE BUFFETat the thoroughly enjoyable Northern Ireland Screen luncheon at the Carlton hotel in Cannes was so diverse and tasty that many of us returned for an encore. Having savoured success at Cannes last year with Hunger, which won the prestigious Camera d'Or, the Belfast-based screen agency is looking forward to a very busy second half of this year.
Chairman Rick Hill noted that Hollywood production Your Highness, a medieval comedy starring hot US actor James Franco from Milk, will be shot over 16 weeks in Northern Ireland, starting this summer.
Projects on the way include Peter Foott's Teenage Kicks, a thriller set around an illicit rave party; Kieron J Walsh's New Year's Eve comedy-drama Jump;the 1922-set Civil War thriller Parabellum, to be directed by Gary McKendry, who wrote it with novelist Colum McCann; and the new film from Kingsdirector Tom Collins, Reading in the Dark, adapted by Ronan Bennett from the novel by Seamus Deane.
THE DRESScode at the evening gala screenings at Cannes is strictly enforced, and more than a few unfortunates, mostly men, have been sent back down the red carpet in shame for not wearing proper shoes.
Northern Ireland Screen chairman Rick Hill proudly turned up in his kilt for the Cannes première of Jane Campion’s Bright Star, but the young usher on duty, clearly unfamiliar with such garb, suspected a case of wardrobe malfunction.
She reported it to a senior staff member, who nodded sagely and waved Hill inside the Festival Palais.
AS THEfestival's director of operations, Michel Mirabella has accreditation and ticketing among his responsibilities. No easy task at an event where 35,000 people are accredited and the largest venue has a capacity of 2,300. "It's like trying to fit a rhinoceros into a milk bottle," Mirabella says.
THE EUROPEANFilm Promotion agency organises the European Producers on the Move event at Cannes, selecting one producer from each country for an intensive week of meetings and networking. This year's Irish producer is Andrew Freedman (28), who graduated from the National Film School in Dún Laoghaire in 2004 and has already made 10 shorts with director Ken Wardrop, including the multiple award winner, Undressing My Mother. Freedman is now moving into feature films, he says during a short break from being on the move at Cannes. He and Wardrop are working on His & Hers,which he describes as "a hybrid between documentary and fiction" observing the lives of Irish women from the midlands. Freedman and Wardrop are also collaborating on Probable Parent. "It's a very dark, humorous film about a woman's coming of age in her late 40s," Freedman says. "She comes a little late to it." And he is raising finance for Do You Know the Five Lamps?, to be directed by Irish film-maker Glenn McQuaid. "It's a Dublin gangster story with dark comedy and elements of horror, though on a realistic level," says the young producer.
THE RUEd'Antibes, which runs parallel to the Croisette in Cannes, is the Riviera town's equivalent of Grafton Street, albeit without fast-food outlets, which were driven off the street years ago. It's indicative of how deep the recession is biting that quite a few stores on the Rue d'Antibes are having sales at festival time for the first time. Several stores are advertising liquidation clearances, and the windows of others are covered with banners offering slashed prices. Sephora, a skincare and make-up shop,even has people handing out leaflets on the street to promote its price reductions.
DESPITE CUTBACKSat TV stations around the world, French pay TV service Canal Plus is spending €6 million on having 480 staff and freelancers in Cannes for its intensive coverage of the festival. The network will have broadcast over 300 hours of Cannes programming before the event's gala closing ceremony on Sunday night.
Along with having exclusive rights to the opening and closing ceremonies, Canal Plus has been transmitting a nightly two-hour prime time show live from a beach stage on the Croisette. It secured interviews with all the many celebs in town, among them Penélope Cruz, Eric Cantona, Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino. And it has pre-bought the French TV rights to 11 of the 20 movies in competition at Cannes 2009. “We won’t be buying a lot of films this year, because we already have them,” commented Canal Plus chief film buyer Manuel Akluy with just a hint of smugness.
THE FIVE-STARCarlton hotel is home to the Cannes jury every year and is always booked out at festival time, so it was surprising to see the hotel taking out ads in the film trade press during the week. However, they were not seeking guests but promoting the hotel as a location for movies, pointing out that the Carlton has provided a setting for such notable films as Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 thriller To Catch a Thief, which starred Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Farther down the Croisette, the upmarket Majestic hotel is building an extension that will add 44 rooms and two suites in time for next year's festival. If you fancy checking into one of those suites, the rate will be €38,000 a night. I'm not sure whether that includes breakfast.
A NOVELset during an international film festival has been serialised online at www.filmfestivals.com with the final chapters appearing during Cannes this week. Described as a romantic thriller, A Festival Wifeis set at a fictional event that's a composite of several prominent film festivals. The author is former Variety reporter Rex Weiner, and anyone who has been to Cannes a few times will find the characters recognisable.
Here’s a prose taster from chapter seven: “Forget about the goddamn Luxembourg tax deal,” said Charles, peering darkly into his Bloody Mary, stirring it with a spoon so that the medicinal mixture of Worcestershire and spices swirled to the surface. “The real story on your film finance guys is they’re killers, Henry. They kill people.”
IF YOUhappen to be of a certain age, the Cannes press kit for Ang Lee's appealing Taking Woodstockmay well make you feel like a relic from a distant past. It contains a glossary aimed at that great majority of today's regular cinemagoers who weren't born when the landmark Woodstock festival took place 40 years ago this summer. The glossary translates such once hip and now antiquated terms as bread (money), fuzz (police), roach (a small butt of marijuana) and gas (sublime, as in "That was a gas."). Far out, man!